BLACK FEMINIST CRITICISM BY BARBARA CHRISTIAN

Barbara Smith is a prominent black feminist scholar, activist, and author who has made significant contributions to the fields of black feminism and literary criticism. Her work has been instrumental in developing and promoting black feminist criticism, which examines the intersections of race, gender, class, and sexuality in literature and culture.

1. Black Feminist Criticism by Barbara Christian Prepared by Rahul Kokni Adhyapak Sahayak (English) Sheth P. T. Arts and Science College, Godhra ( Panchmahal ) Affiliated to Shri Govind Guru University Godhra, Gujarat (India)

2. About the author Barbara Christian: Pioneering African American Literary Feminism Scholar Barbara T. Christian (1943-2000) Born in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands and died in Berkeley, Calif., U.S.) Educated at Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin (B.A., 1963), and Columbia University, New York City (M.A., 1964; Ph.D., 1970) American author and professor of African-American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Ms. Christian's marriage to David Henderson, a poet and a biographer of Jimi Hendrix, ended in divorce. “She was a path-breaking scholar,” said Percy Hintzen, (chairman of the department of African American studies) “Nobody did more to bring Black women writers into academic and popular recognition.”

3. Cont.… First Black woman to be granted tenure at UC Berkeley in 1978. First Black woman to be promoted to full professor (1986). First to receive the campus's Distinguished Teaching Award (1991). Founder of UC Berkeley’s African American Studies Department. Contributed to the prominence of Black women writers like Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison, and Alice Walker. Criticized exclusionary tendencies in literary theory in her 1987 essay “The Race for Theory.”

4. Cont.… Received the Berkeley Citation before her death in 2000. Berkeley Citation ''for distinguished achievement and for notable service to the university.'' Henry Louis Gates Jr. of Harvard University wrote that Ms. Christian ''has emerged as the senior figure among African-American feminists.‘’ Arnold Rampersad of Stanford University called her ''a major shaper and guide in the general area where the subjects of literature, race and feminism meet.''

5. Works Black Women Novelists: The Development of a Tradition, 1892–1976 (1980) Teaching Guide to Accompany Black Foremothers (1980) Black Feminist Criticism: Perspectives on Black Women Writers (1985) From the Inside Out: Afro-American Women’s Literary Tradition and the State (1987) Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple” and Other Works: A Critical Commentary (1987) Black Expression (1969; edited by Addison Gayle) and to the journals The Black Scholar and The Journal of Ethnic Studies The Race for Theory in the journal “Cultural Critique” (1987) she co-edited works such as Female Subjects in Black and White: Race, Psychoanalysis, Feminism (1997)

6. Black Feminisms and Black Feminist Criticism Black Feminist Criticism Black feminist criticism emphasizes the representation of race in both criticism and fiction. Historical understanding is a key part of critical analysis for black feminist critics. Black feminist critics focus on representations of memory, such as Zora Neale Hurston's "Remembering." Black women were historically marginalized in critical texts until the 1970s. Alice Walker argues that black cultural heritage exists outside the academy with deep roots in African culture.

7. Cont.… Barbara Smith's Black Feminist Criticism Smith's essay "Toward a Black Feminist Criticism" (1977) highlights the tasks of black feminist criticism. Smith defines a black feminist standpoint based on autonomy, not separatism. Smith coined the term’ simultaneity of discourse' to define black feminist criticism.

8. Cont.… Zora Neale Hurston's Work Hurston is seen as the "mother" of twentieth-century black women's writing. Her works reflect tensions of audience and self involved in race, sex, and class. Hurston's novel challenges realism and deals directly with the empowerment of women.

9. Cont.… Black Feminist Criticism Black feminist criticism aims to widen traditional literary history to include black women writers. It addresses the question of audience and relations between black writers and black and white readers. Black feminist cultural or materialist readings are grounded in the concerns of the black community and dialogue with sexual politics.

10. Cont.… Symbols and Symbolism in Black Feminist Criticism Symbols reconcile individual characters with communities, making everyday objects important cultural emblems. Place is important in black feminist criticism, with themes of place, landscape, and domestic interiors. Black feminist texts resist colonial dominations and misrepresentations. Metaphors in Black Feminist Writing Metaphors like the blanket organize the narrator's objective experience and offer a structured passage into the author's private and emotional experiences.

11. Black Feminist Criticism and the White Feminist Canon Feminist Theory and Worldview Feminist theory, about six decades old, provides an empirical worldview focused on ending the oppression of women. It emerges from the large volume of women's writing and attempts to utilize the experiences and insights earned by women to end their subjugation. Radical feminist Charlotte Bunch emphasizes the importance of viewing diversity of women as the center from which we explore commonness.

12. Cont.… Understanding Women's Discrimination Women's oppression crosses all ethnic and racial boundaries. All feminists are essentially writing "one huge story," but their perceptions and oppressions are not identical. White feminism has overlooked the diversity of women, presuming that white heterosexual women's writing speaks for everyone. This appropriation of the role of spokeswomen has silenced non-white women’s voices, establishing an unconscious and unarticulated complicity between the author and the reader.

13. Cont.… The Failure of White Feminist Criticism White feminism has failed to recognize differences, and ironically, white feminists are guilty of the same appropriations they accuse men of. To women of colour, a feminism that denies the realities of race and class differences and treats woman as a unilateral category is at the very best, inadequate and parochial.

14. Cont.… The Layered Erasure of Black Feminist Criticism Black feminist criticism finds itself in a layered erasure—first feminist criticism is written out of a male literary canon, then black feminist criticism is written out of the white feminist canon. The corpus of writings about black people by white authors was replete with images of black womanhood encapsulated within the confines of a few select images.

15. Black Women's Literary Tradition and the Role of Black Women The Perception of Black Women in Literature Black male writers often depicted black women as extreme sexual, usually ignoring their unique strengths and idiosyncrasies. Ralph Ellison, acclaimed for his book "The Invisible Man," portrayed black women as voyeuristic and often comical. Chester Himes' detective novels depicted black women as raucous, outspoken, and often violent, often portrayed as comical or excessive. James Baldwin and Richard Wright portrayed black women as "passing attention," with women characters often relating to men as relatives.

16. Cont.… The Struggle for Black Women's Heroism Mary Helen Washington questioned why black women's heroic voice and image are suppressed in a culture that relied on her heroism for survival. Despite the constraints, black women and their men continued to pass on their collective wisdom and culture through stories, songs, and poetry.

17. Cont.… The Emergence of Black Women's Literary Tradition Black feminist scholarship has established an extraordinary African American women’s literary tradition dating back to 1746. From the second half of the 20th century, black women began writing stories that black women wanted to read, a trend that widened the literary, historical, and political landscape of world literature. The 1970s saw the publication of Toni Morrison’s "The Bluest Eye," Alice Walker’s "The Third Life of Grange Copeland," and Maya Angelou’s "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings." The literary movement has taken its place as a distinct period in Afro-American literary history, with a focus on marginalizing the black woman, articulating her voice, and rendering her experiences as valid.

18. "African American Women Writers: Historical and Cultural Visibility" Toni Morrison's Novel “Sula” The central theme was the friendship between two women, Sula and Nel. Racial Identity and African American Experience Slavery and Its Aftermath Memory and Trauma Community and Belonging Alice Walker's Novel “The Color Purple” Addressed sexism within the black community and lesbianism. Despite sexism within the community, women were not expected to expose this reality to the world. The Color Purple became a national bestseller, winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1983 and the National Book Award.

19. Cont.… Zora Neale Hurston: Writer known for her use of black English and idioms in her novels. Walker emphasized the duty of artists and witnesses to collect their genes for the sake of their children. Theme of the Search for Self-Identity and Autonomy Love and Relationships Gender Roles and Female Empowerment The Intersection of Class and Power Resilience and Survival

20. Black Feminist Criticism and the Writings of Black Women The Emergence of Black Feminist Criticism Black feminist criticism emerged due to the growing corpus of writings of black women. Black literature stems from a story-telling tradition of oral literature. Toni Morrison explains that black literature can be both print and oral, combining both aspects for a rich coalescing of form and content. Barbara Smith highlights the distinctiveness of black English language, which communicates nuances and shades in writings not possible in mainstream language.

21. Cont.… The Role of Black Music and Cultural Symbolism Black women writers use expressions of black music, historical events, and religious and cultural symbolism. An ancestral figure often looms large in the fictional canvas, providing comfort and reassurance. The community plays an integral role in the structure of many of these novels.

22. Cont.… The Paradigms and Structures of Black Feminist Criticism Barbara Christian, a professor of African American studies at the University of California, Berkeley, questioned what constitutes a black feminist literary critic. Black literature should be evaluated stylistically for its imagery, metaphor, description, onomatopoeia, poly-rhythms, and rhetoric. Black feminist criticism should be able to see the writings holistically with all their nuances and ramifications.

23. Cont.… The Role of Black Feminist Criticism Black feminist criticism should explore how sexual and racial politics and Black and female identity are inextricable elements in Black women's writings. It should recognize that Black women writers manifest common approaches to the act of creating literature as a direct result of the specific political, social, and economic experience they have been obliged to share. Black feminist criticism aims to reveal the profound subtleties of this particular body of literature.

24. Key aspects in "Black Feminist Criticism“ Intersectionality: Christian critiques mainstream feminism and traditional African American criticism for neglecting race and gender. Historical context: Christian examines how historical conditions like slavery, segregation, and economic marginalization have shaped Black women writers' lives and literary output. Representation of Black Women: Christian critiques the "mammy," "jezebel," and "welfare queen" tropes of Black women in literature, arguing that Black women writers have created counter-narratives.

25. Cont … Recovery of Black Women Writers: Christian studies their contributions to both Black and feminist literary traditions. Critique of Western Literary Canon: Christian advocates for a more inclusive literary criticism. Language and form: Christian examines Black women writers' language, style, and forms, viewing them as forms of resistance to dominant conventions.

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